HESPERIDES, maidens of high degree appointed to guard the golden apples presented to Hera by Gaia on her marriage with Zeus, assisted in their office by the dragon Ladon; the apples were stolen by Hercules, but were afterwards restored by Athene.

HESPERUS, the personification of the evening star and an object of worship.

HESSE or HESSE-DARMSTADT (993), a grand-duchy of the German empire, lies partly in, and partly on the border of, SW.  Prussia; consists of two large portions, divided by a strip of Hesse-Nassau, and 11 enclaves; half the land is under cultivation, and the greater part of what remains is covered with forest; its many rivers belong mostly to the Rhine system; corn is raised in large quantities, iron and manganese are found, and there are flourishing manufactures of leather, upholstery, tobacco, &c.; the legislative power is vested in two chambers; Mainz is the largest town, and Darmstadt the capital.

HESSE-CASSEL (745), a government district in HESSE-NASSAU (q. v.); as an electorate it sided with Austria in 1866, which brought about its incorporation with Prussia.

HESSE-NASSAU (1,664), a province in the SW. of Germany, between the Rhine on the W. and Bavaria and Saxony on the E.; was formed in 1868 out of the electorate of Hesse-Cassel, duchy of Nassau, &c.; the country is hilly, abounds in minerals, which are extensively worked, but agriculture and cattle-rearing are the chief industries; the medicinal springs of Homburg, Wiesbaden, &c., are celebrated; Cassel is noted for its gold and silver ware; damasks and other textiles are produced at Fulda, and at Hanau are flourishing iron-works; Marburg has a fine university.

HESTIA, called Vesta by the Romans, the Greek goddess of the hearth, or rather the fire that burns in it, the guardian of domestic life, conceived of as a most sacred charge.

HESYCHASTS, a religious sect of the 14th century belonging to the Greek Church; consisted chiefly of a community of monks who dwelt at Mount Athos; they professed a kind of QUIETISM (q. v.), and were noted for their practice of sitting for hours daily with their eyes fixed upon the navel (regarding the stomach as the seat of the soul); in this position they professed to see a divine light beaming out upon them, and to enjoy therein a specially intimate communion with God.  See ATHOS, MOUNT.

HESYCHIUS, a Greek grammarian of the 5th century, born at
Alexandria; produced a Greek lexicon of great philological value.

HEUSCHRECKE, HOFRATH (i. e.  State-Councillor Grasshopper), a loose, zigzag figure in “Sartor,” a mend and blind admirer of Teufelsdroeckh’s, an incarnation of distraction distracted, and all the counsellor the “editor” had to advise him and encourage him in his work; a victim to “timidity” and preyed on by an uncomfortable sense of mere “physical cold,” such as the majority of the State counsellors of the day were.

HEXATEUCH, the name given to the first six books of the Bible.